Fill It Up

There was this philosophy professor in a prestigious university who loved to teach students about important theories of the subject. Once, while his lecture was about to begin, he just closed the book and instead stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him.  Students were curious but the professor without looking at them silently picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar. Thereafter, he started to fill it with small rocks. Once the jar appeared full, professor proceeded to ask his students ‘whether the jar was full?’



The entire class unanimously agreed that jar was indeed full. Next, the professor picked up some pebbles and began pouring them into the jar. The moment pouring was complete, he shook the jar lightly. As a result of that, all the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks and settled comfortably.

Professor again asked the students if the jar is full. Same response from the class like before and they all agreed that the jar was full. Professor smiled a bit and this time he picked up a box of sand. He poured the box into the jar and sand filled the entire remaining spaces. Professor repeated his question to the class, if the jar was full? Yes again, was the unanimous response of the students.

Professor now turned towards the class and said, this jar represents your life. The entire things I poured into the jar symbolise some important lessons. The rocks are the most important things, i.e., family, your partner, health and your children. Even if everything else in your life goes away but the rocks remains there, your life would still be full because the most important things are still present in your life.

Pebbles represent other significant things like car, house and job etc. And the sand is the small stuff or everything else.

So the lesson to be learnt here is, you all have to be very selective about what to fill in the jar first and in what order. If your time and energy is spent on small stuff then there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks or in other words, most important things of your life. Always pay attention to things that are most important to you and never take things for granted.

So take care of rocks first and rest everything will fall into place.